Robert Heinlein - The Number of the Beast

"Sorry. Friends, this is Brigadier Iver Hird-Jones. Squeaky finds things I lose and remembers things I forget."

"Ladies. Gentlemen. Charmed. Here is something you told me to remember, General." The Brigadier handed a sealed envelope to his boss.

"Ah, yes!" Smythe-Carstairs handed it to my wife. "The Keys to the City, Ma'am. Phrased as you specified, each of you nathed, and that third factor included. Signed by me for the Sovereign and carrying the Imperial seal."

"Your Excellency is most gracious," Hilda said formally, and turned toward Deety. "Astrogator."

"Aye, Captain." Deety placed it in her purse.

Our host looked surprised. "Jake, doesn't your wife have normal curiosity? She seems to have forgot my name, too."

Hilda protested, "I haven't forgotten your name, Bertie. It's an official matter; I treated it formally. I shall read it when I have leisure to open that envelope without damaging the flap seal. To you this is one of thousands of papers; to me it is a once-in-a-lifetime souvenir. If I sound impressed, it's because I am."

Lady Herbert said, "Don't flatter him, my deah." (Yes, she had had a couple.) "You'll turn his head, quite." She added, "Bertie, you're causing our guests to stand when we could be inside, sitting down."

"You're right, m'dear." Bertie looked longingly at Zeb's car.

Hilda played a trump. "Care to look inside, Bertie? Betty, you can sit down here; the captain's chair is comfortable. Will you do me the honor? Someday I'll tell my grandchildren that Lady Herbert sat in that very seat."

"What a charming thought!"

Hilda tried to catch my eye but I was a jump ahead of her, handing Lady Herbert in, making certain that she didn't miss the step, getting her turned around, making sure that she didn't sit down on belts. "If we were about to lift," I told her, while fastening the seat belt loosely (first, moving the buckle- she's Hilda's height but my thickness), "this safety belt would be fastened firmly."

"Oh, I wouldn't dare!"

"Gangway, Pop! Another customer." I got out of the way, and Deety installed Brigadier Hird-Jones in her seat. Deety said, "Pop, if you'll put the Governor

in your seat, Zebadiah will take his own and give his two-hour lecture on the care and feeding of spacecraft, while you and I and Hilda hang in the doorways and correct his errors."

"I'm only up to chapter four," Zeb said defensively. "Jake, make her quit picking on me."

"You're her husband; I'm merely her father. Bertie, I must ask one thing. Don't touch anything. This car is not shut down; it is ready to go, instantly."

"I'll be careful, Jake. But we're leaving the ladies standing. The Captain herself! This is not right."

Deety said, "Bertie, I don't want to sit down. This trip doesn't give me nearly the exercise I need."

"But I can't permit Captain Hilda to stand. Sit here and I'll stand." (I appreciated his gallantry but I could see an impasse coming: two people, each aware of her/his prerogatives and they conflicted.)

Hilda avoided it by something she had discovered in working out how to rig a double bed in the control compartment. Although pilots have separate seats, the passenger's seats are really one, built all the way across but separated by armrests... which could be removed with screwdriver and sweat.

I had eliminated sweat and screwdriver; a natural mechanic, such as Zeb, accumulates miscellaneous hardware. Those armrests could now be removed and clamped out of the way with butterfly nuts. Hilda started to do so; the Brigadier dismounted them once he saw what she was doing.

It was a snug fit, but Hird-Jones has trim hips and Hilda has the slimmest bottom in town (any town).

"An important feature," said Zeb, "of this design is a voice-controlled autopilot-"

"Are you open to a bribe?"

Deety:

Zebadiah, for seventeen dull minutes, said nothing and said it very well. During that plethora of polysyllabic nullities, I was beginning to think that I would have to take Pop to a quiet spot and reason with him with a club- when Captain Auntie showed that she needed no help.

Pop had interrupted with: "Let me put it simply. What Zeb said is-"

"Copilot." Cap'n Hilda did not speak loudly but Pop should know that when she says "Copilot," she does not mean: "Jacob darling, this is your little wifey." Pop is a slow learner. But he can learn. Just drop an anvil on him.

"Yes, Hilda?" Aunt Hilda let the seconds creep past, never took her eyes off Pop. I was embarrassed; Pop isn't usually that slow-then the anvil hit. "Yes, Captain?"

"Please do not interrupt the Chief Pilot's presentation." Her tone was warm and sweet: I don't think our guests realized that Pop had just been courtmartialed, convicted, keelhauled, and restored to duty-on probation. But I knew it, Zeb knew it-Pop knew it. "Aye aye, Captain!"

I concluded that Captain Auntie never intended to stand outside. She had told me to offer my seat to Squeaky and had added, "Why don't you suggest to your father that he offer his to the Governor?" I don't need an anvil.

It was a foregone conclusion that Bertie would object to ladies having to stand while he sat. But if he had not, I feel certain that the Hillbilly would have held up proceedings until she was seated where she could watch everyone but our visitors could not watch her.

How tall was Machiavelli?

As they were climbing out the Brigadier was telling me that he understood how she was controlled-but how did she flap her wings?-and I answered that technical questions were best put to the Captain-I was unsurprised to hear Cap'n Auntie say, "Certainly, Bertie... if you don't mind being squeezed between Deety and me."

"Mind'? I should pay for the privilege!"

"Certainly you should," I agreed-the Hillbilly's eyes widened but she let me talk. "What am I offered to scrunch over?" I slapped myself where I'm widest. "Squeaky is a snake's hips-not me!"

"Are you open to a bribe?"

"How big a bribe?"

"A purse of gold and half the county? Or cream tarts at tea?"

"Oh, much more! A bath. A bath in a tub, with loads of hot water and lots of suds. The last time I bathed was in a stream and it was coooold !" I shivered for him.

The Governor appeared to think. "Squeaky, do we have a bathtub?"

Lady Herbert interrupted. "Bertie, I was thinking of the Princess Suite. My deah, since you are all one family, it popped into mind. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two bathtubs. The drawing room is gloomy, rather."

I answered, "Bertie, you didn't talk fast enough; Betty gets the first ride."

"Oh, no, no, no! I don't fly even in our own flying carriage."

"Hahrooomph!" Squeaky boomed. "Are you still open to a bribe?"

"You might try our captain; she's as corruptible as I am."

Aunt Hilda picked it up. "Now that I've heard that two bathtubs go with the suite, my cup runneth over. But my husband and my son-in-law have matters to discuss with the Governor's technical staff. I don't have to be bribed to offer a few joy rides, Brigadier-one passenger at a time and, as Deety implies, not too wide a passenger." Aunt Hilda added, "Betty, I must confess my own weakness. Clothes. What I am wearing, for example. A Ferrara original. An exclusive-Mario himself created it for me. While it is intended for salt-water yachting, it is just as practical for space yachting-and I couldn't resist it. Do you have nice shops here?"

Bertie answered for his wife. "Hilda, there are shops-but Windsor City is not London. However, Betty has a seamstress who is clever at copying styles from pictures in periodicals from home-old but new to us." He added, "She'll show you what we have. Now concerning this ride you so kindly offered me- does it suit you to give me an appointment?"

"Is right now soon enough?"